Suspected drug trafficker caught in Mexico

Mexican authorities on Monday announced the arrest of Armando Villarreal Heredia, a U.S.-born drug suspect described as one of the principal operators of a trafficking group formed from the remnants of the once-powerful Arellano Félix cartel.

Villarreal, nicknamed “El Gordo”, was arrested on Saturday by Mexican Federal Police in the city of Hermosillo, capital of Sonora state. A statement described him as a top lieutenant in the group headed by an Arellano Félix nephew, Fernando Sánchez Arellano.

Villarreal allegedly coordinated drug shipments from the city of Culiacán to Baja California, and across the border to the United States. He also was allegedly in charge of intercepting shipments of other drug trafficking groups emanating from the state of Jalisco.

Villarreal “is being investigated for introducing large quantities of drugs, mainly marijuana, to San Diego and Los Angeles in cars with hidden compartments that he prepared in the city of Tijuana,” according to a statement from Federal Police.

Villarreal was 16 years old when he first became involved with the Arellano Félix, through his cousin Arturo Villarreal Heredia, who has been linked to immigrant smuggling, abductions and extortions, the statement said. With the cousin’s detention in 2006 alongside Francisco Javier Arellano Félix, Villarreal began reporting to Fernando Sánchez, Federal Police said.

In 2009, Villarreal was one of ten suspects listed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as members of a new generation of traffickers.

Villarreal was named along with 42 other suspects in an indictment in San Diego federal court unsealed in July 2010. As one of the top operators of the Fernando Sánchez Organization, Villarreal “had the ability to sanction all types of criminal activities...including murder kidnapping, drug trafficking and money-laundering offenses,” the indictment states.

Though said to be still active, the Fernando Sánchez group is a shadow of the former Arellano Felix drug cartel, authorities say, as the powerful Sinaloa cartel has increasingly taken control of drug trafficking activities in the Baja California region.